If your goal is just to lose weight, without worrying about whether you’ll lose it and regain quickly afterward, dieting is right for you. However, if permanent weight loss is your ultimate goal, then you need to make lifestyle changes. Dieting alone won’t work. You need to make changes to your eating habits so you don’t regain it. Healthy eating isn’t about living your life denying the foods you love, but it is about learning how to chose food wisely and how to make substitutions that won’t affect the taste of the food, but does affect its calorie count and how healthy it is.
It’s not about the number of carbs or calories you eat, but more about what you eat.
Even if calorie counting or carb counting has become a lifelong hobby that you’re good at doing, stop it at focus more on what you’re eating. Is the food healthy and filled with nutrition or are you eating your daily calories in Snickers bars? If you’re living on rice cakes and celery, you’re not getting the healthiest diet either. Your body needs fat, protein and carbs to function properly. In fact, healthy fat is necessary for burning calories and losing weight.
What else can help you take weight off and keep it off permanently.
Exercising regularly is the key that fits that lock. When you workout, you build muscle tissue and muscle tissue requires more calories to maintain than fat tissue does. That means you’ll burn more calories 24/7, even when you’re not exercising. You’ll also look leaner and healthier. You’ll have more energy at the end of the day and even have more energy to do the fun things life has to offer.
Learn to deal with stress and avoid it if possible.
You can’t change the fact that you’ll occasionally be in stressful situations, but you can change how you think about it. Are you in a traffic jam? Even if you’re running late, there’s nothing you can do, so use the time for something productive or just enjoy the quiet and solitude if you’re in the car alone. If you’re with the kids, take the time to play that you wouldn’t have otherwise. Stress creates the hormone cortisol and cortisol is linked to abdominal fat. Stress also takes its toll on your entire body and leads to poor health.
- Start a healthy lifestyle by cutting out food with added sugar or processed white flour. Eliminate processed meat and other highly processed food. Add extra vegetables to every meal and you’ll find you’ll lose weight easier.
- While dieting or even healthy eating habits can be as efficient as combining diet with exercise, exercise alone isn’t the path to a healthy body. You can’t out-exercise an unhealthy diet.
- Adequate sleep is important to preventing weight gain and losing weight. When you don’t get enough sleep, it increases your hunger hormones and suppresses the ones that make you feel full. You also don’t have the energy to run a peak performance, burning calories in the process.
- If you aren’t ready for a formal exercise program, just move more throughout the day. Take a walk at lunch or take the stairs instead of the elevator. If you have an opportunity to move around more, just do it.
For more information, contact us today at LIV Fitness